Together with Holy Roman Empire
by Windswift
Summary: And that's how Germany ends up standing at the stove, making a pot of cocoa in the middle of the night, while a boy claiming to be the Holy Roman Empire sits at his kitchen table.


Disclaimer: _Axis Powers Hetalia_ belongs to Himaruya Hidekaz

Following the theory that Holy Roman Empire and Germany are different people: I see absolutely no excuse for these shenanigans not to be happening, especially since these kinds of things just happen to Germany an awful lot. (So until I get some of this crack in canon, I'll just stay over in that corner proclaiming Germany is Holy Roman Empire forever.)

_**Together with Holy Roman Empire**_

In the darkness Italy's breath brushes hot and fleeting against the curve of Germany's bare shoulder, leaving his skin too cold at each inhale. Never mind that Italy can't be in his bed, can't have invited himself over in the middle of the night and snuck under the blankets naked, because Germany has forbidden his ally from doing exactly that several hundreds of times.

But the goosebumps prickling and tingling in his skin, exciting along his upper arm and spreading towards the back of his neck, until his muscles seem to vibrate just below the surface like piano wire or violin strings-they vouch for the presence of the smallish but persistent elephant in the bedroom that Germany doesn't relish rolling over and facing. He does so anyway, with a grunt of annoyance, because it's not as though he can just close his eyes again and not have woken up in the first place. And since Germany isn't fast asleep until morning, when it's too late for anything but scolding Veneziano over breakfast, he really has no excuse not to shake him awake and turn him out.

Unperturbed, Italy wriggles a little closer as the mattress dips, not heeding the way he butts his forehead against Germany's mouth and chin. Germany snorts into his hair when it tickles his nose.

"Italy," he commands-though it comes out as half a whisper, hushed and compressed under the weight of the darkness and the earliness of the hour and Prussia and Austria asleep in their bedrooms down the hall. Germany clears his throat and continues in something more like his regular voice, "Wake up." He bats through the mess of blankets to grab Italy's shoulder and give him a good, sharp jerk.

Downstairs something creaks-the kitchen pantry door, by the sound-and Germany ends up just pushing Italy on his back and forgetting to follow through with the other half of the shaking while he strains to listen. All he catches is the whisper of his own shallow breathing and the pounding of his heartbeat in his ears. Germany swings his legs over the edge of the bed and tugs the blankets back up after him before he creeps to the door.

By the time he reaches the stairs, rolling through his foot on each slow step and trying not to bump in the darkness and wondering if it's just his imagination supplying the noises he's expecting to hear (they seem to have been louder with each time he plays the echo over in his mind), he's spotted the glow of the kitchen light. Neither Prussia nor Austria are much given to fits of insomnia and nighttime wandering-but then again, neither is Germany, although his exceptions are growing less and less rare as of late. And Italy, he reminds himself, is at least very good about locking the front door securely behind him after letting himself into Germany's house at all hours-and rather less so about making sure he's turned out the lights.

But Italy is also very good about picking up stray cats roaming the neighborhood and shepherding them through the door first, _because, Germany, it was really dark out and kind of cold and isn't he cute; he was sitting on your doorstep when I came up so I thought this little guy must be Germany's kitty!_ Germany pinches the bridge of his nose, and he can feel the phantom twinges of the headache already, like the smell of a thunderstorm blowing in but still lurking past the edge of the horizon yet.

Germany steps down onto the main floor and pauses to listen again. If it is a cat-he ought to wake the real miscreant and force him to clean his own mess (and then send him home). But Italy's almost as much of a pest underfoot as an unnerved cat, and Germany's still cringing from the last time they had to shoo one out, and if he's going to be up all night agonizing over it he might as well make certain the job's done properly. Besides-assuming that's the case at all-at least one of them should be well-rested, and it may as well be Italy because come daylight Germany will put him through hell in training to make up for it.

Germany rounds the kitchen doorway, blinking and squinting a bit in the full light, and it's because he's looking around at the height for a cat that he notices the little boy. He's stretched up on tiptoes, barefoot and in a white nightshirt, trying to see over the lip of Germany's trash bin while he shakes the dustpan from the pantry into it.

The picture is so removed from all the possible scenarios Germany has been anticipating that his mind almost doesn't register what his eyes are seeing. But the little blond figure is still there, tapping the dustpan against the side of the trash as quietly as he can, and Germany crosses his arms and draws himself up to his most imposing and towering height as he huffs in indignation. "Kobolds are just folk stories," he lectures the intruder. "They don't really exist. And I wouldn't need one to do my chores at night-I keep my house perfectly clean, thank you very much!"

There's a second's lag time while the child fumbles with the dustpan and pivots to stare at him, and then Germany's mind catches up and helpfully repeats his words back to him. Germany's ears burn; worse even than the nonsense of it all, his scornful tone rings every bit as insulted and self-righteous as Austria. Germany restrains himself from slapping a hand to his face, then clears his throat in the silence and prays that Austria's awful fussiness isn't catching.

Except for his height, the boy doesn't much match the illustrations of house imps Germany is familiar with in his books. His face is round-cheeked and solemn with a child's chubbiness, his ears lack any exaggerated point, and his nose is still small and pert and youthful. He's staring up at Germany's face like an owl, eyes big and unblinking and blue enough that Germany can tell the color clearly even from partway across the room, and so unruffled that it's practically insolent. The back of Germany's neck prickles with a weird feeling he can't quite place.

"How did you get in here?" Germany demands. He steps closer to corner him and loom even more. "What are you doing in my house?"

The boy cranes his neck back in order to keep eye contact and still manages to look down his nose at Germany. "It was my house first," he declares. "I can come back to haunt it if I like."

The boy skips over the first question, but Germany has had plenty of practice noticing quick, sneaky little movements-like the way, when Germany first began to move, he snatched at a string around his neck and stuffed it down the front of his nightshirt, the metal key flashing under the light. The door key that Germany remembers giving to Italy, and forcing him to run extra laps for several days after it had to be replaced.

Germany's angry enough at the tiny thief (and a touch guilty, too) that he almost misses the answer to the second question. "Haunt? What do you mean, haunt? And this has never been your house."

"It is so!" The boy crosses his arms to match Germany's stance, arching his back a little and bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Just ask my brother, the Teutonic Knights. I've seen him in this house with you. Or you can ask Austria, he'll tell you."

"You mean Prussia? My brother?" It slips out of Germany's mouth before he can remind himself that he's not debating with a delusional home invader in the middle of the night, especially one whom he could pick up in one hand and toss out on the front step.

"Well-he's my brother first," the boy asserts. "I'm oldest."

And there's the first rumblings of his headache rolling in. Germany massages his forehead, between his eyes. He absolutely refuses to wake up Prussia and Austria to verify this ridiculous story-and refuses even more so to endure the humiliation later when the daylight makes this whole scene more flimsy and ludicrous.

And that's also when Germany finally identifies that niggling little feeling of foreboding and deja vu. "This is insane. _You're_ insane. Did someone put you up to this? A suspicious-looking man who claims he's actually the Roman Empire?"

The boy bounces on his toes again, bright and beaming and painfully earnest. "Oh, you know Roman Empire too, the greatest nation that ever lived?"

This time Germany does succumb to the urge to smack a hand to his face, and his palm muffles his groan of _why me_. He handles enough stress during waking hours, keeping his day-to-day life neat and managing his housemates and managing his allies as well and following after his boss's errands. He can't deal with these lunatics during the night when he ought to be asleep. And he suspects they might be harmless, if he just turns around and walks back upstairs. He suspects they're not even real, just figments of strange nightmares. He just wants to go back to bed.

And that's how Germany ends up standing at the stove, heating a pot of cocoa in the hope that the warm milk will ease him back to sleep, while the Holy Roman Empire sits swinging his feet in the air, propped up on a few manuals so that his chin clears the kitchen table.

Germany gives the cocoa a final stir, pours it into two coffee cups, and sets the one only half-full (and, maybe, half as likely to spill) in front of the boy before he takes his own chair. "It's hot," he warns as Holy Roman Empire reaches for it with a two-handed grip.

Holy Roman Empire blows into his cup and peers over the rim at Germany with that too-serious face. "You didn't make any cocoa for Italy," he reproaches. And adds as an afterthought, "Or Austria or Prussia."

"I didn't have enough milk." The headache twinges behind his eyes, so Germany closes them and breathes in the warmth from his cocoa. "And they're all already asleep." He'd forgotten about Italy, still waiting upstairs and infesting his mattress like a stubbornly clingy bedbug, and all his clothes downstairs and folded strangely neatly beside his boots where he shucked them off at the front door.

Which reminds him. "Why _are_ you here? You can't have just been following Italy here to clean up after him?"

Holy Roman Empire flushes. "I made the mess! I was the one who tracked in the dirt." He announces it just a little too-loudly enough that Germany knows he's lying. The boy takes a hasty gulp of cocoa. "Um, though. I did come to see Italy. To make sure Italy's well and happy. I miss it, not living together anymore." He fidgets with his cup, pressing it against his bottom lip and turning it a few degrees this way and that under his fingertips.

Germany nods. He drinks his cocoa, leans back in his chair, and pretends not to feel his headache.

"Aren't you going to be tired tomorrow from being up so late?" Holy Roman Empire pipes up after a minute.

The cocoa has Germany feeling warm and comfortable, and Italy isn't sleeping at the table and leaning inconvenient and too-familiar on his shoulder. "Yes," he answers.

"Then you should go to bed!" he scolds. "You need to get your proper sleep. Your home is in a war right now, aren't you? You have to be strong and take care of yourself, because you're taking care of Italy too. Everyone in your house is depending on you."

Holy Roman Empire is so very zealously impassioned, and Germany is so very worn-down, that he hasn't got the heart to point out who woke him up from his proper sleep in the first place. Instead, as he gives up and pushes his chair back from the table to sleepwalk upstairs and tumble-crawl into his bed, Germany replies, "The light better not still be on when I wake up in the morning."

He's not entirely confident the tiny empire can actually reach the light switch, but by the time that thought occurs Germany is already under the blankets and scooting Italy over to just one half of the bed. And if Germany can't toss and turn like his usual habit while he's waiting to drift off, because Italy's nose is trying to bury itself dog-like in the curve of his neck, and because something warm and heavy and roughly child-sized has taken up residence on the end of the bed beside his feet-well, everyone's just going to have to grin and bear it, no complaints, because Germany isn't getting up again.


End file.
